Police in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, noticed two men, Todd Herburg and Scott Luker, using a heavy-duty hoover to suck money from a coin-operated machine at a car wash. It is unclear how many quarters the men, both in their 50s, managed to liberate in the 12 minutes before they were caught using the shop vacuum on the car wash's coin-operated vacuum cleaner.
Kelli Belpedio alleges that she was hugged by Epic Restaurant doorman Schyler Truesdell upon entering the Chicago establishment and awoke the next morning to find that her right breast implant had deflated. In her lawsuit against the restaurant, its owners, and former college American football player Truesdell, Belpedio states that staff should have made it clear during training that 'doorman duties and policies at Epic Restaurant did not include bear hugging customers'. She is seeking the equivalent of about 67,500 euros in damages.
Robert Gursky explains that he had been trying to do a good deed when he passed a note to a Glastonbury, Connecticut, bank teller that said 'gun'. Staff didn't know his intent so triggered the silent alarm. After his arrest, the 50-year-old man explained that he had seen a gun-toting man at the bank and wanted to warn bank personnel in a low-key manner. According to Glastonbury Police Agent Kevin Szydlo, the man with the gun was legally permitted to carry it and Gursky is preparing to explain himself in court.
Concerned members of the public at a Home Depot store in South
Carolina summoned the police after two people entered a display shed one
morning without later emerging. When officers arrived at the home
improvement store, it became clear that Emily Craig, 20, and Shaun
Bowden, 31, were engaging in sexual intercourse inside the shed.
The two promptly emerged from the display area in states of partial
undress, so Bowden was charged with indecent exposure in addition to
initially lying to police officers about his name. Both face charges
of disorderly conduct, all for taking Home Depot up on their old
slogan's offer: 'You can do it. We can help.'
In a tale of a first date that could have gone better, the UK's
Kishore Nimmala paid the equivalent of 60 euros on two rounds of drinks at Leicester
Square with Fakhara Sultana. He expected her to reimburse him for
half of the amount, but Sultana told him that she thought the man
should pay on a first date. After the date shrieked to a halt,
Nimmala, 32, followed her to demand the money. When Sultana pulled her
BlackBerry from her bag, he snatched it and declared it to be
compensation.
Nimmala ran off with the device, so Sultana caught the attention of
two passing police officers, who joined her in chasing him. After
being caught, Nimmala claimed that he'd figured his date would offer
her share of the bill once he'd taken the phone.
Canadian police sergeant Terry Cox reports that a woman in Lindsay,
Ontario, rang the cops for advice because she feared that someone
might violently rob her of her plants. The officer warned her that
the call was being recorded, but she reiterated that she wanted help
in protecting her home's marijuana, worth about 8,000 euros.
The drug enforcement unit later visited 46-year-old Dolly Russell's
home. They prevented any violent theft of the marijuana plants by
removing them from the premises, and Russell was charged with
production and possession of the drug.
Late at night, a man rang the emergency services in Nässjö, Sweden, to
explain that he had become trapped in a tree after running from a
robber. However, officers remembered that sniffer dogs had lost the
scent of a robber a few hours earlier near the same tall tree.
When the man was rescued from his perch, officers found that the
tree also contained the items stolen in the robbery. Charges have
been filed.
We can add Matthew Matagrano to the list of people who have gone to a
fair amount of effort to break into jail. The 36-year-old New York
man used fake correction department credentials to enter the Manhattan
Detention Center and spent several hours with inmates, assaulting one
of them, handing out cigarettes, and pilfering a walkie-talkie.
Matagrano, whose record includes sex crimes and several other instances
of sneaking into New York jails, has pleaded guilty and been sentenced
to 10 years in prison. Explaining his motives, he said that the
people in jail are 'nice' and made him 'feel important'.
In line with a court order to make a public apology to Cleveland, Ohio,
police officers, 58-year-old Richard Dameron is standing near the
police station for three hours a day while wearing a sign that
outlines the stupidity of his alcohol-fuelled crime: ringing the
emergency services to threaten police officers. The yellow sign
he is wearing for one week reads: 'I apologize to Officer Simone &
all police officers for being an idiot calling 911 threatening to kill
you. I'm sorry and it will never happen again.'
Thinking back on his actions, Dameron said: 'I do feel bad about it,
’cause the man's never done nothing to me.'
This time, it wasn't quite the demolition crew's fault. A destruction crew in Pontiac, Michigan, checked the number on the demolition order against that on the building before performing the act. However, someone had nailed the condemned building's house number to a different property, nearby. The owner of the house that ended up destroyed said that he is wondering whether the city owes him a new house or not. The owner of the condemned building, which has since been demolished, could not be reached for comment.
An employee with the Whatcom, Washington, sheriff's office saw a man exit a pickup truck and shoot an arrow toward a window of the upstairs recreation area at the state jail there. The man, 36-year-old David Wayne Jordan, had spent 20 days in that jail not long before. After his arrest, he told officers that he had been aiming at a squirrel. He could not explain why the arrow, which hit neither the window nor any squirrels, had marijuana attached to it.
Speaking for the police in Rostov-on-Don, southern Russia, Viktoria Safarova reports on two men in their 20s who struck up a conversation that turned into a philosophical argument while they were waiting to buy beer at a small shop. The debate, about Immanuel Kant's ideas, could not be settled with mere words and turned into a fist fight. Then, one man fired repeatedly at the other with a 'non-lethal pistol', sending the other man to hospital with head injuries. The shooter fled the scene but was later arrested with the weapon.
In Dover, England, Richard Henderson sent a text message asking
neighbour Jason Martin to turn down his music. Martin, a nearly
toothless 41-year-old man, responded by accosting Henderson and
allegedly gnawing on his penis to an extent that required stitches.
Martin, who admitted only to grabbing the plaintiff's 'bits and bobs',
denied the charges in court on the basis that he is 'not a gay man in
any way'. He has been convicted of wounding with intent to cause
serious injury.
Reuters reports that Anthony Jason Garcia rose from his praying
posture at a Catholic church near Disney World and sprinted for the
gift shop's cash drawer. Most of the people praying and working at
Mary, Queen of the Universe Shrine didn't notice, but the church's
director of maintenance, Joe Larkin, did.
It was no contest, thanks to the blow Garcia suffered from his
clothing - specifically, his baggy trousers. Orange County Sheriff's
Office spokeswoman Jane Watrel explained: 'So here Garcia is, both hands
holding the cash drawer and trying to pull up his pants. So [Larkin]
plunges for him and pulls his pants down further.' Garcia tripped,
and Larkin kept him in a wrestling hold until officers arrived.
Javier Gonzales-Guerrero was shot more than 20 times at a San Jose, California, hotel after a costume party to which he had brought a gold-coloured toy pistol. This reaction could be considered extreme, since Gonzales-Guerrero was passed out drunk when the officers began firing at him. A settlement is pending under which he would receive 6.75 million euros' worth of compensation for, among other things, his various surgeries and having a bullet permanently lodged in his spine.
Back in 2009, a 22-year-old man was busted while selling bootleg compact discs in a supermarket car park in California. The arresting officer, Tariq Ibrahim Musa, noticed a photograph of the man's wife and offered to drop the charges in exchange for an hour of sex with her. Hearing the offer, one of the vendor's relatives rang the police. The 33-year-old Musa, who isn't actually a police officer, was placed under arrest. He has now been sentenced to 10 years in prison, having pleaded guilty to kidnapping, false imprisonment, grand theft, and other charges.
Life can be tough in a small town. Alaska's Ronald Kingeekuk, 22, found this out when trying to cash a cheque at the only shop in his village, Savoonga. The cheque, along with a pistol and other items, had been stolen a few days earlier from local resident Jody Madsen's home. State troopers stationed in Nome were able to work out what had happened in the village of about 670 people, and Kingeekuk was arrested.
I have another story about football in Brazil this time, but it's a
little less violent than the previous one.
Romildo da Silva has been suspended for 24 matches and given a fine
for making two vital saves for the Aparecidense club near the end of a
fourth-division match. The reason he got in trouble is that he is the
club's masseur and wasn't supposed to be on the field.
That day's rival team, Tupi, now replace Aparecidense in the quarter
finals. Aparecidense club officials report that they are appealing the decision.
Vince Sicari had a second job as the judge in South Hackensack until
the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that an ordinary member of the
public might not be able to separate his role ruling on traffic
violations and similar cases from his work as stand-up comedian Vince
August.
Sicari, 44, chose to resign from the bench, as he relies on his
comedy for a full-time income and health insurance. Saying: 'I am hopeful
that all involved feel that I have served the judiciary with the honor
and distinction that it deserves', he stressed that he had always been
careful not to make jokes on the bench or crack jokes about lawyers in
his comedy routines.
Pennsylvania's Thomas Marrone was arrested for driving while intoxicated. When the police pulled him over, they noted that he smelt of alcohol and had an open can of beer. The reason they pulled him over in the first place might have had something to do with the fact that his vehicle was a riding lawnmower and it was 1am. Marrone, 55, explained that he had simply been driving back home (about 10 km away). Adding to his catalogue of offences is that his driving licence had been suspended.
A man in Livingston, Montana, reported that vandals had thrown eggs at his house and festooned it in toilet paper. Officers arrived to investigate. According to Police Chief Darren Raney, their job was made considerably easier by the shopping bag they found outside, within which was a receipt for eggs and toilet paper. The 15- and 16-year-old boy whom surveillance camera footage revealed to be responsible were referred to the local juvenile probation officer.
Police officers were making sure all was going well at New York's Staten Island Mall, where a large crowd had gathered overnight before the release of the video game Grand Theft Auto V. Officers saw three men drive up, flash badges at the shopping centre's security guards, and enter the closed building past the crowd of 500. The men exited a short while later with the new game in hand and sped away, activating their car's lights and siren. The real police gave chase, through several traffic lights, and pulled the men over. They have been charged with criminal impersonation.
Rakhima Ganieva, 18, is listed as a contestant in this year's Miss
World competition, representing Uzbekistan. However, it has emerged
that there is no national beauty contest in Uzbekistan, and the Uzbek
Culture and Sports Ministry have not heard of her. A red flag had
been thrown up by her contradictory claims about her university
qualifications. At the time of this writing, Ganieva was still listed
as Miss Uzbekistan on the missworld.com site.
Zhavlon Komolov, speaking for the modelling agency that used to
represent Ganieva, said: 'If there had been a process to choose a
young lady for this competition, I can assure you that a much more
beautiful model would have been chosen.'
Responding to a call about an assault, officers with the Spokane County, Washington, sheriff's department arrived at a woman's home to find her in bed and bloody, with two knives and a somewhat bent sword nearby. Since there were no signs of an intruder, the first suspect was the woman's 13-year-old son, who had been at a 14-year-old friend's house until that family's SUV went missing. Police dogs found the two boys near the crashed SUV, whereupon the 13-year-old blamed his drug use for his willingness to attack his mother with a sword. The idea had been that of the 14-year-old friend, who had also tried to convince him to eat his mother after the attack. The mother is now in stable condition in hospital.
Several vanfuls of homeless people were driven in from a shelter in Los Angeles
to queue for at least one night at a shop in Pasadena, California,
ahead of the new iPhone's release. Instead of the smartphone,
publicity was drawn to the fisticuffs that erupted between various of
the homeless people over the matter of payment. The businessman who
had hired them was escorted away by police officers for his own
protection, with the police's Jason Clawson stating that the man
had done nothing illegal.
One of the homeless men, 43-year-old Dominoe Moody, said: 'It didn't
go right. I stood out here all night.' He didn't get his $40 and
ended up with no way to return to Los Angeles.
One of the guests arriving for a wedding at a church in Hutton, England, said: 'There was blood all over the floor just outside the church. When I went in there, it was like someone had been murdered.' The wedding was delayed not by a murder but by a man having, in the words of the Reverend Bob Wallace, 'self-harmed outside' and then entered the church to talk with the vicar and sling chairs around. The man reportedly had cut off his testicles with a pair of scissors, with at least one of the testicles ending up on the church floor.
The Coca-Cola Company arranged a promotional campaign in Canada in which an English word and French word chosen at random are paired under the cap of each bottle of Vitamin Water. Thus it was that Blake Loates found 'YOU RETARD' under the cap of her water. Loates, whose younger daughter suffers from autism and cerebral palsy, did not think first of the French verb. David Thomson, the vice-president of still beverages for Coca-Cola, said that his company will send a formal letter of apology to the Loates family.
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© 2013 Anna Shefl